Page 214 - sons-and-lovers

could not breathe. The house was dead silent.
‘I went to work, mother,’ he said plaintively.
‘Did you?’ she answered, dully.
After half an hour Morel, troubled and bewildered, came
in again.
‘Wheer s’ll we ha’e him when he DOEScome?’ he asked
his wife.
‘In the front-room.’
‘Then I’d better shift th’ table?’
‘Yes.’
‘An’ ha’e him across th’ chairs?’
‘You know there—-Yes, I suppose so.’
Morel and Paul went, with a candle, into the parlour.
There was no gas there. The father unscrewed the top of
the big mahogany oval table, and cleared the middle of the
room; then he arranged six chairs opposite each other, so
that the coffin could stand on their beds.
‘You niver seed such a length as he is!’ said the miner,
and watching anxiously as he worked.
Paul went to the bay window and looked out. The ash-tree
stood monstrous and black in front of the wide darkness. It
was a faintly luminous night. Paul went back to his moth-
er.
At ten o’clock Morel called:
‘He’s here!’
Everyone started. There was a noise of unbarring and
unlocking the front door, which opened straight from the
night into the room.
‘Bring another candle,’ called Morel.

1